Northwood students build a future

Graphics

After receiving a coveted technology grant, Northwood High School purchased a 3D printer to churn student imagination into reality.

Teacher Patrick Quigley received more than $3,000 last year as part of an Innovative Teaching Awards Program grant sponsored by the Irvine Public Schools Foundation. Quigley used the money to buy a MakerBot Replicator 2 and swaths of gray, green, black and white polylactic acid printing spools for his computer-aided design classes.

The visual arts teacher's advanced computer graphics classes once focused solely on learning design software. But after acquiring the 3D printer, Northwood students now spend one semester familiarizing themselves with programs and the next applying their skills.

Northwood uses MakerBot's third-generation printer, which employs an extruder, a device that transforms the raw material into the 3D object, and a roughly 11-by-8-inch build plate onto which prototypes and miniatures are created.

“Form and function is the biggest jump that the 3D printer helps students with,” Quigley says. “They can see if (a design) works and if it looks like what they thought it would – instead of what was just on the monitor.”

Students enrolled in Quigley's classes become fluent in design programs such as ZBrush, Blender, Google Sketchup, Chief Architect, TinkerCAD, 123 Design, Painter X, 3D Studio Max, Maya, Inventor, Mudbox and Swift 3D, many of which, Quigley notes, are used by professionals in a wide range of industries.

After Quigley's students master introductory lessons and tutorials, his advanced computer graphics syllabus calls for students to complete four major projects: an invention or industrial design, a character design, a toy design and an automobile or plane design.

There are 28 juniors and seniors in Quigley's advanced computer graphics classes, sorted into subgroups based on where students are in the potentially yearlong elective. Of the nearly two dozen students clamoring to use the printer, eight are currently tinkering on projects.

“I've learned a lot about manufacturing and just, in general, how to make things,”
Reshef Elisha says.

Elisha, a senior at Northwood, has been playing the clarinet for eight years. His interest in acoustics has pushed him to design and print a series of instrument mouthpieces.

He's created one for his clarinet, one for his friend's piccolo and another for his friend
Adella Guo's trombone, which has a mustache on it.

“People don't see the practical usage now,” Guo says of the printer. “But for anything that you need customizable, it's really important.”

Guo notes that it's much faster to render a 3D-printed prototype than to build something with your hands. She says it comes down to “hours versus weeks” when comparing the two different processes.

Elisha and Guo underline that 3D printing is faster, cheaper and more efficient. They also add that their knowledge of 3D printing will give them a leg up in college, as they are looking to pursue careers in mechanical engineering and industrial design, respectively.

Jason Hwang calls the printer “a machine that allows you to make something on a computer screen come to life.”

Hwang is fine-tuning a model of an electric wheel-hub motor that he designed using a direct drive from a brushless motor. The device can theoretically be attached to any skateboard or vehicle that needs motorized power.

Hwang's interest in 3D printing has inspired him to create a 3D printing club at Northwood. The club, which is still going through the hoops and hurdles of the school's application process, would allow students not enrolled in Quigley's elective to learn about and use the 3D printer. It would also serve as a potential recruiter for students considering a computer-aided design class.

Quigley says the addition of 3D printers will soon signal a dramatic shift in how classes are structured and taught.

From a bigger-picture standpoint, students are able to receive quick results as to whether their projects will be functional. But from a superficial standpoint, the printers can also produce quick iterations of models or tools.

Quigley, for example, has bypassed purchasing certain classroom items, such as palette knives for his art classes, because he can print them quickly – and for less money – with the printer. He's made a megalodon tooth for one science class, as well as pieces for molecular structure model kits for a chemistry class.

The only downsides of the printer Quigley has encountered so far are the extruder and the build plate. He says the extruder will on occasion jam with polylactic acid and have to be taken apart to clear out the parts on the machine.

The build plate is sensitive and has to be calibrated so it comes within one business card's width of the tip of the extruder. If this miniscule measurement isn't accurate, the heated plastic doesn't catch the plate the right way and essentially does not congeal. The result is a spaghetti mess of polylactic acid.

Quigley's students called the class's first failure the Quiggle, after their fearless leader. The botched print stands tongue-in-cheek at the front of their classroom as a reminder that any lack of attention to detail can be disastrous.

Undaunted, Quigley's students build on. Other students in the class are working on building a miniature roller derby track, 3D printer parts, character figurines and models of Northwood.

Quigley is not the only teacher employing leading-edge technology in the classroom. In nearby districts, Kevin Crossett, a teacher at Huntington Beach High, also uses a 3D printer. And Arnold O. Beckman High's Karen Akashi has integrated iPads into her AP art history class.

In a time when public high school teachers clamor to net prizes and funding for efficient, innovative classroom tools, Quigley's is an exemplary career that mirrors the technological vogue.

At Northwood since its 1999 opening, Quigley has taught classes ranging from AP art to yearbook to computer graphics. His innovative bent has brought new technology such as computer labs and big-time software programs to the Irvine campus – efforts that culminated in the recent acquisition of the MakerBot.

Just as computers in the classroom revolutionized how and what students learn, Quigley asserts that the proliferation of 3D printers and computer-aided design-type software can do the same for those interested in pursuing careers in the engineering, art, architecture and game design fields.

Says Quigley of this generation of students: “They're kind of the pioneers of learning 3D print technology.”

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